b-cleaning - Dave Hill is Rad!

Dave Hill loves photography and his portraits show it! He goes beyond reality and reaches into his own imagination. He takes well lit portraits and turns them into scenes that look like they are out of comic books.

The thing that makes this site even more awesome is that he is not afraid to give you a behind the scenes look at how he makes the portraits. He has tons of videos that show how he works on his website and this is great for any photographer looking to improve their skills.

He used to have a blog (http://www.photographyisrad.com/) but there was nothing on it when I looked.

Hill has a knack to bring out the character's in his subjects. Then he works magic with his retouching skills and installs a background behind them to match that.

http://www.davehillphoto.com/

Going into "5 Star Photographer" folder

B - Cleaning - Will Yurman, Photojournalist

Following up on my post about Aphotoaday is this other bookmark I found. Will Yurman has been posting A Photo a Day to his website every day. He is a photographer at the Rochester Democrat and Chonicle who has been posting daily and has archives back to 2004.

Posting a photo a day has become a trend with some people, but Yurman's work is inspiring and he has gone beyond the trend phase. To post your work every day for over 6 years takes dedication. I have trouble updating a blog every few days, let alone editing and posting a photo.

On a daily basis he creates and shows images that are pictorial compositions that tell a story, but reach beyond the obvious.


http://www.willyurman.com

Goes in two folders "5 Star Photographer" and "Check Daily"

b-Cleaning - Aphotoaday.org

(Photo by Matt Slaby from Aphotoaday Essays)

I've been a member of http://www.aphotoaday.org for a long time. It's a collective of photographers searching for their vision. Everyday they send photos to a list that many of their newspapers wouldn't run. As the list has grown to over 1000 photographers, many of them have branched out past newspapers or never worked for newspapers and post a photo for one reason or another. Some are looking for criticism, some want to test new ideas, and some just want to show off their best work.

Melissa Lyttle, who is currently with the St. Petersburg Times, brainstormed the idea with classmates who she had gone to school with. When they graduated they missed the daily critiques of each others work and just seeing each other's work.

One of these photos is pulled from the list and displayed on the front of the site every day. Even if you don't follow the list, this one photo can be inspirational.

On top of this one photo the Aphotoaday news blog is full of information surrounding photojournalists. Many times they will interview one of the many amazing photographers who are on the list, throw up a portfolio of an inspiring photographer or just pass on relevant news.

By surrounding myself with these inspirational and outside of the box photographers it helps inspire me to keep creating photos that move away from the cliche. Even as I move away from news photojournalism, these photos are awakening.

http://www.aphotoaday.org

Put in "5 star photographers" folder

B-Cleaning - Matt Stuart

Matt Stuart shoots pigeons, among other things on his amazing street photography website. He has an awesome ability to capture the weird and wacky. You can go out in the street and just snap pictures, but to be quick on your feet and compose images that are oddball and have a punchline is a whole different skill set all together. I love to look at these images because I always have to wonder what he was thinking when he made an image. Did he actually plan it out or did everything just fall into place and did he actually see it falling into place or just get lucky and find it later?

http://www.mattstuart.com

Filed under "5 Star Photographers"

b-Cleaning - Constantine Manos's American Color

Constantine Manos with Magnum starts this piece - "In everything beautiful there is something strange"

I usually find myself too busy to watch a lot of multimedia pieces, there are so many amazing ones out there and I just can't find the time to watch them all. I watched this piece from beginning to end and took notes.

I have been trying to redo my website and I was looking for direction. Manos hit all the right emotions. He talked about images being a kaleidoscope, strange and surreal, bizarre and finding offbeat places. A quarter of the images were made within a 20minute drive of me!

This piece is inspiration, and it not only gets the blood flowing to redesign my site but it makes me want to run out the door and make some images right now.

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/color

Filed under "5 Star Photographers"